Red Dead Redemption 2

Mike GristLife

Hoo boy, I am playing some serious video games today! Red Dead Redemption 2 just came out, and it’s being called the best video game ever made. I bought it at Sainsburys along with some bagels and curry flavor baked beans. I’m only 2 hours in, still locked into the strict story/tutorial mode, but it is fun. It’s also gorgeous. Graphically this must be the greatest, deepest virtual world ever created. That’s something.

I also have Witcher, but it hasn’t grabbed me like this. Maybe it is the extent to which Red Dead has put the training wheels on. You have to do this, then this, then this. I like that. The game will open out soon, with an open world alongside the quests, but I like this structure telling me what to do.

Not good for my carpal tunnel-ish wrist. But I play with a splint on, so…

(Embarassingly, I first bought the X-Box version. It took me two seconds, before even stepping out of the shop door, to remember I actually had a Playstation. I used to have an X-Box. The girl changed it over with a knowing smile.)

 

Doctor Who series 11 episode 4 – Arachnids in the UK review

Mike GristDoctor Who, Life, Reviews, TV

After the intense social commentary and emotional social justice warrior-ing of episode 3 Rosa Parks, Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who goes for a simple ‘monster of the week’ episode – in this case, spiders. But this new Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) can’t leave PC politicking well enough alone. It’s everywhere you look, and I admire that enormously.

The episode begins with the Doctor, Yaz, Ryan and Graham arriving back in Sheffield, and facing their imminent dissolution. The Doctor is about to go off on her own, the others back to their lives. It’s quite a sad moment, because sure, the Doctor leads an infinitely lonely existence.

Then Yaz invites her home for tea. Dad makes a mean (bad) pakora, mum (breathlessly called Yaz’s mum by The Doctor, like she’s a schoolkid coming round to play) works for Mr. Big in his Big Hotel, and sister throws out snarky retorts. The Doctor loves it. She rhapsodizes about imaging herself having a sofa. Or a flat. Or a view from a flat.

Then the spiders come.

Picture Shows: The Doctor (JODIE WHITTAKER) BBC

There are giant spiders next door. There’s one in Graham’s attic. And most of all, there are really giant spiders in Mr. Big’s hotel where Yaz’s mum works. Or used to work. She gets fired instantly, for, well, having the audacity to speak?

After that, with the gang all in the hotel, it becomes in some ways a pretty standard, if high-quality, monster romp. The graphics are fantastic for a show like this – those spiders look almost Hollywood movie-grade. The gags are good. The acting is fine.

Except it’s not standard, because nothing about this Doctor is. The really interesting stuff comes toward the resolution, and may have actually answered a question I’ve had lingering since the final moments of the first episode.

That moment was on the crane, when the Doctor has just thrown a bit of tech at the toothy Tim Shaw, and he’s about to get time-zapped back to his own world. The chap who was Shaw’s trophy then kicks out, knocking Tim Shaw off the crane to fall, presumably, to his death. Except of course he zaps off in space.

Big win, no? Except the Doctor rounds on the trophy guy and says angrily “You had no right to do that!”

What now? I didn’t get it then. Was she angry that he had stolen the kill from her? I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Tim Shaw had already killed several people. He deserved to die. What could the Doctor possibly be mad about?

Well, look at Arachnids for a possible answer. the Doctor shows tremendous empathy at her every interaction with the giant spiders. On her first interaction in the flat next to Yaz’s mum (couldn’t resist) she gets down and has a chat with the spider, telling it to hold fast while she figures some things out. Of course the spider doesn’t understand, but that’s not the point. The point is that the Doctor even makes the effort to explain her plan.

Why explain it to a spider? Well. Later on, when a spider explodes out of the bath plug (fantastic new phobia for kids!), she ducks her head down to chat, with seemingly no intention of hurting it. She says several times that these spiders are not acting normally – something has done this to them.

That is quite complex. We’re not just blaming the spiders for being monsters. We’re looking beyong their ‘monstrous’ appearance and trying to figure out what it is. After all, they’re not actually eating humans. Killing them, yes, and wrapping them in silk, but not eating them. They are trapped in their too-huge bodies every bit as much as our heroes are trapped in the hotel with them.

That requires a tremendous empathic leap – to feel for the spiders. The Doctor makes that leap with ease. she tries to bring us along with her. So the piece de resistance comes at the end, when we see the massive spider trying to climb the wall, and the Doctor explains that it is too big to breathe. It’s dying, and trying to escape from them. It’s more afraid of us than we are of it.

What a beautiful moment. It’s just a spider, she’s saying. It’s suffering. Sure, we could kill it, but if we take the time to understand it, we don’t need to. So this Doctor is adamantly against killing. She will seek to understand even the darkest of hearts, and then heal them, rather than outright kill.

So this sheds light on Tim Shaw’s fall. She is angry at the trophy guy because he tried to kill Tim Shaw. He had no right to make that judgment, she is saying. In the moment, Tim Shaw was neutralized. Sure, he was a bad guy, a killer, but in that moment he was harmless. On his way out. And the death penalty was not trophy guy’s to hand down.

Fascinating.

So the monster is not just the monster. In Arachnids, the real monster is the Trump-like Mr. Big who has allowed his hotels to be built on huge piles of irresponsibly dumped waste – hotels and waste and companies which he refuses to take responsibility for. Remind you of anyone? He insists he doesn’t know everything his companies do. But he takes all the profits they produce. He plans to leverage that into the presidency.

The real monsters are humans. Greedy, base, standard-issue humans.

I love that Doctor Who is making humans central to its stories. Aliens just aren’t as interesting. Unless, of course, they are aliens with human-like motivations. Daleks are fascinating because, like the Borg, they can be seen as extreme fascists. They have no empathy – and that is terrifying.

My only concern is how anti-American this episode could have come across. Yes, I’m all for railing against guns at any chance the Doctor can get. But having that in there, alongside a villain who is so stereotypically ‘American’? It’s a lot to swallow. Of course we had Rosa Parks and other positive Americans last time. So I’m not overly concerned.

On the whole, I continue to think that the Doctor is doing amazing, uplifting teaching for all of us. She’s from the future, from another race. She’s supposed to be wiser than us. How fitting then that she cares so deeply for life in all its forms, us humans included.

Highgate Cemetary West

Mike GristChurches / Shrines, Life, Ruins / Haikyo

A few months back we went to Highgate Cemetary West side on a guided tour with su’s family. We had her sister and two boys staying with us in the living room for 2 weeks. The whole trip was crazy fun, unlike anything we’ve done before, except for maybe big family events when WE were the kids! How odd to be on the other side of that…

Highgate West is pretty fantastic – except for the areas where they’ve been cleaning and conserving. They see their mission there as being to bring the cemetary back to its original glory. My preference, and what the Victorians also liked about it in its latter, ruinous stages, was the romantic decay – tumbling graves, uneven movements of the earth, total overgrowth.

Here are some modestly cleaned up areas. Apparently parts of the new Fantastic Beasts movie were filmed here too – so look out for that!

Entrance to a tomb arcade. Many of the tombs inside here were unpopular, because Victorians wanted somewhere to come spend the day and picnic with family, and inside here was quite gloomy.

The bit where Fantastic Beasts 2 filmed.

Some of the uneven decay remains.

Leveled off but still overgrown.

The path out. A nicer place to set out a picnic blanket and let the kids go wild.

How to become an author mentor?

Mike GristLife, Writing

I’ve been thinking more recently about trying to use what I know about writing and publishing to help other authors write, publish and market their books. This is often called author mentoring, but for me also includes creative writing teaching. I’m doing research to figure out how to get into this field. As far as I can see, there are two parallel tracks – this is what they look like:

TRADITIONAL ROUTE

  • Get trade published (ie – not self-published). Get an MA in Creative Writing. Maybe get a PhD.
  • Possibly some courses on editing?
  • Leads to university lectureships, work at The Literary Consultancy doing book appraisals/editing, various part-time teaching/editing gigs.

I’ve always known that getting into a university position requires gatekeeper approval. You need to be traditionally published to get there. From what I’ve seen talkng to fellow members of the Society of Authors, you don’t need to be mega succesful or with a major publisher to achieve these positions. Good money can be made, and more than that, you get access to molding all these young, motivated minds.

That’s what I’m after. The parts of my current job, as an Academic Writing skills teacher at foundation school before university, that I enjoy the most revolve around workshopping students’ essays and teaching them ‘how to think’ in logical, evidence-supported ways.

I don’t think it can be that different from running creative writing workshops. My methodology and pedagogy is pretty much all set up. Teach something, as much as you can teach various creative writing skills, then see what they come up with and steer where possible. That sounds like great fun.

First is publication. Although I could start getting my MA now. And taking editing courses, taking on odd editing jobs.

Relevant links:

  • The Literary Consultancy – Offers a range of manuscript assessment, mentoring and editing services to authors, provided by a wide, stellar cast of bestseller authors.
  • City Lit – Offers a range of creative writing courses, run by published authors.

INDIE ROUTE

  • Have visible success as an indie, win prizes, make cash and achieve bestseller status.
  • Write a book on some aspect of indie writing.
  • Make an online course on same.
  • Set out your mentor shingle on a personal website and start soliciting mentees. Probably word of mouth and personal connections is a good way to get clients.

I know a couple of people through my Alliance of Independant Authors marketing group who do mentoring in various shades. One friend is designing a course. Another mentors writers. Again, as with the TRAD route, you don’t need overwhelming success it seems to have a crack at this. Writers who are further down the ladder will look at writers with modest but good achievements and want to get a leg up from them.

This mentoring gig seems pretty different from the TRAD route, in that it’s more bespoke. You bring all your knowledge to the table, whether that’s in writing, editing or marketing, and help the mentee where they need it most. The mentee pays a set fee and can expect a certain number of hours per week/month of your time.

Relevant links:

  • Shelfhelp – A one-man mentoring service run by Ben Galley, whose book cover for The Written I saw when he was first getting feedback on it on the kboards Writer’s Cafe. Professional-looking, 2 online courses, charges by the minute in phone calls. Mostly focuses on the marketing side.
  • Helena Halme – A friend in the ALLI marketing group, Helena has been doing mentoring for a while, with strong testimonials from several Baronesses from the House of Lords! She seems to follow the Create Think Do method of mentoring.

Other links I’m stumbling along that are useful for general networking:

  • BytetheBook – Loads of networking opportunities in London, including occasional speed-pitching with agents sessions.
  • London Writer’s Cafe – Meetup group that meets once a week, run by Lisa Goll who also started Create Think Do
  • Spread the Word – I don’t really know what these guys are, but maybe they are like Byte the Book and organize various networking events for writers in London. They’ve got an event discussing mentoring for writers coming up on Nov 15, I think I will go.
  • First Monday Crime – I learned about this from the Society of Authors introductory party (showing the value of networking!) – a place for crime/thriller writers to get together and listen to panels of succesful writers, and network. I’m going to the next one.
  • ALLI – Alliance for Independant Authors. Founded by Orna Ross, who also started the Meetup marketing group I’m no co-organizer of.
  • Society of Authors – What it says on the tin – they advocate for authors, vet contracts, and run some events. I’m going to a regular meetup of Novelists in London these days.

It’s fascinating what worlds open up when you look outside the realm of self-publishing. I’ve been exclusively on that side of the fence for four years now, and opportunities for networking were pretty limited. Now I’m looking at trad publishing again, there are so many things to do!

Anyway.

Back to evaluating the INDIE ROUTE – I like this approach too. The chances of getting an actual ‘job’ seem far more remote – there are no organisations I know of hiring mentors. You’re freelance, a sole trader really, but that sits quite nicely alongside being a writer. I’ve done something like this in the past, when I taught English to private students in Japan.

In fact I used to have a very cobbled together English-teaching schedule – every week 3 or 4 private students, 2 or 3 company gigs with a business client, 6 hours at one uni and 6 hours at another. 20-odd hours in total, adding up to a nice full-time income.

I haven’t done anything like that here (in the UK) because there are fewer opportunities to teach Academic skills in that way. Maybe though I can look harder at moving onto a cobbled together schedule, incorporating mentoring work. It sounds like fun. Next time I’m with folks on both routes I’ll dig a little deeper, and in the meantime think more about adding a mentoring option to my website. Get in line now!

Wonder Woman 2 filming outside my school!

Mike GristLife

Yesterday teams started setting up Christmassy grottos, fake snow patches and giant snowmen outside my workplace, Birkbeck college in London. I figured it was going to be an ongoing Christmas fair, similar to the farmers’ market that runs there every thursday.

Then I came in today, and saw they have added a couple of giant nutcrackers to the building entrance, more fences are in place, along with some signs directing the crew not to take photos or walk on the snow.

Nutcrackers not normally here.

Huh?

Crew?

I came in to the office and rumors abounded. One said that this was all going to be for a commercial for Winter Wonderland – the Christmassy extravaganza that takes over Hyde Park in the next few months, filled with rides, food, entertainment and Christmas commerce. OK.

Then someone reported seeing WB equipment – Warner Brothers? How was that connected to Winter Wonderland? And why would Wonderland need to mock up footage from here – why not just use footage from last year?

Then the rumor entered the fray that they were filming Wonder Woman 2. The pieces began falling into place. Winter Wonderland? Wonder Woman? WW? It’s a good cover story. WB, check. Some quick Googling confirmed they are filming WW2 in London. It was originally scheduled for a Christmas release in 2019 – which makes sense for them having a Christmas scene. (Apparently that’s been delayed now to summer 2020).

I went out and spoke to one of the crew. He confirmed that it’s a film. A nearby fan confirmed it is Wonder Woman!

“She’s here tomorrow,” she said.

Gal Gadot outside Birkbeck college! Filming a winter market scene. My guess is, with the big nutcrackers and the internal construction they’re doing to build some kind of Santa’s grotto, they’re mocking us up to look like an Oxford Street department store. Maybe Harrod’s or Hamley’s, with a street market going on outside. Set in 1984.

Grottos going up.

Staff on patrol.

Big snowmen through the grating. Look out for these fellas in the WW 2 movie!

Internal works – leading to a Santa’s grotto? Or – maybe more likely, a window scene that looks like a department store window display!

Some co-workers talk about coming in tomorrow to see if they can see Gal Gadot. The building is open, though of course that nutcracker entrance will be closed. I could come in, but I don’t think I will. It could be all day, and still see nothing! I’ve got some very important Tv shows to watch and stories to write.

Writing Update 1 – Thriller book 2

Mike GristLife, Writing

It’s time for a writing update!

As I’ve probably announced, I’m writing thrillers now, set in the real world. After 9 books in the Zombie Ocean/Last Mayor series, and two books reworked in the Ignifer Cycle, I was ready to try something different.

Now I’m sitting on a thriller already written, currently on submission with 10 agents in the genre, and I’m working on book 2 in the series. It is going to some dark, grim places. I got feedback on book 1 from a trusted reader/writer who said it was much grimmer than the norm out there. Bloody and horrific.

I suppose I am writing to the kind of readers who like Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, and Luther. There is no shortage of gore, at times. That said – I have been trying my darnedest to limit it. The lens of the story doesn’t linger on horrific things. There are no long descriptions. I try to get in and out of horrible stuff quickly.

So, book 2! What can I tell you? The hero is in a basement right now, doing basement kind of things. Grim. He’s been whizzing around in cars, planes and helicopters to date. Here are a few stats.

Current word count: 40,000

Number of vehicular crashes: 1 (book 1 clocked in at 2)

Body count: Somewhere around 14 so far. Goodies and baddies mixed in.

Locations: 2 major ones. Rural and City. 3 settings in the city. We’re about due for a flip to somewhere else!

Anticipated wordcount: 100,000, or so I expect. I’m writing more by the seat of my pants than ever. It’s great fun – but who knows if I’ll get to all the events I have planned within 100k. It seems like a lot. It may be the first in the series to go international.

I’ll try and post weekly updates on my progress!

Re-evaluating Peep Show – is it misogynistic?

Mike GristLife, Politics, Reviews, TV

I have always loved Peep Show – the story of two lovable uber-losers Mark and Jeremy (Jezz) living in a flatshare in Croydon, struggling to make their way in the world today. The humor is almost entirely built on their pathetic, small-minded pettiness, often combined with their very English sense of embarrassment. It’s done knowingly, of course. I always wanted to cheer these affable sadsacks, even as you wince along with them.

For example, Mark accidentally kills a person’s dog – but can’t ppossibly admit to that. He tries to dispose of the body by burning it, but fails. He tries to dispose of the burnt remnants in a paper bag, then gets dragged onto the owner of the dog’s barge where he is ‘forced’ to lie that in the bag there is a BBQ. He must then eat the dog and pretend it’s delicious. The owners eat the dog. It’s hilarious, how far these two will go to keep up a charade.

But also pretty horrible?

Another example that had me laughing uproariously was Mark’s wedding to Sophie, when he hides out in the church upper pews in a half-hearted but desperate bid to not get married, without having to face everyone and admit he doesn’t want to get married. It’s utterly cowardly, but exquisite when Jeremy has to pee in his pants because they’ve been hiding so long. Then he stands up, announces that the whole thing was a big jape, and proceeds to get married. Sophie is crying as they say their vows. So is he. The absolute cowardice of them all is so funny…

Mark and Jeremy, clueless as ever. Image: Channel 4

But.

I never watched Peep Show with anyone else. I never really talked to anyone about it. When it was on TV, I was watching from Japan. I certainly never watched with a lady, until Su came along. I tried once or twice to get her into it, but she always resisted – turned off by what losers these two were.

“That’s the point,” I tried to explain. “That’s why it’s funny.”

She was having none of it.

Roll forward to a few days ago, and we started afresh on season 1. The first few episodes, almost immediately, Su started to laugh. I couldn’t believe it! Somehow, maybe after 4 years of living in the uk, being exposed to this Little Britain kind of social cowardice as a point of humor for us Brits, she got it?

Well, the laugh train continued as the boys had misadventures and tried their best to score points off each other, as Mark got called ‘Clean Shirt’ by the bully kids, as Mark tried and failed to get a date with Sophie, and told her “I can’t talk now, I’m in the cupboard,” while standing in the cupboard, and so on.

Then, things took a little bit of a nasty turn. Sophie got given a promotion above Mark, and he started showing a different side of himself. He called Sophie a ‘Bitch’, a word I really hate, several times. Yes, he said it to himself, but he said it with feeling. He assumed he should get the job over her, and said as much to her directly. They then played badminton together, and he kept smashing the birdie into her face. Hmm. Then he finally went mad and pissed in the desk drawer of his female boss, because she didn’t give him the job. Last of all, when Sophie tells him their ‘relationship’ is over after he messed things up with Jeremy on a weekend away, he immediately threw a cup on the floor and smashed it.

Now – I know I found all this stuff funny once. I suppose it’s funny because Mark is so pathetic and weak that these acts of violence come across only as laughable, with no real threat there. But any violence is violence. Sophie is depicted as not too bothered by his behaviour, but does that make it OK?

Well, obviously not. When we laugh at these ‘antics’ by Mark, we’re just saying they’re funny. No one is saying they’re OK. It’s just more pathetic behaviour. But pathetic violence lies on a spectrum with real violence. Keep going a few steps further, and Mark might be punching Sophie. The violence gets ‘real’, no longer restricted to the ‘microagressions’ of earlier.

So what to make of this. I asked a few female coworkers. As I listed the above microaggressions, they laughed at each one. Shuttlecock. Pissing. Broken mug. Clearly, these actions are funny. Everyone knows Mark is pathetic. He’s like a toddler acting out, and Sophie is in loco parentis, giving him a stern look. She’s never actually afraid of him.

So, what? Hmm. We laugh because he’s like a baby. It’s a comedy show. When Mark stalks and prank phone calls Sophie, trying to bring her down a peg or two, it’s funny because she is not afraid. Rather she strides out with an air gun and shoots him in the head. So is all this funny just because it’s so ineffectual? His male rage is toxic, but only ever redounds badly on him.

In that sense, is this a parable against male rage?

It’s true, Mark ends up suspended and going to counselling after his desk-pissing incident. When he pinches Sophie’s bum, she tells him clearly that that is not OK. His stalking is rewarded with an air pellet in the forehead. At the end of series 1 he is utterly dejected, broken, and feeble. A shadow of the shadow of a man he was before.

So? I’m really not sure. Maybe it’s fine? Maybe it’s actually doing good feminist work, depicting Mark as a loser in this way, only able to express his inner rage in the most basic, childlike ways, who ultimately gets punished?

What do you think?

Korean study update 1 – Harry Potter progress

Mike GristKorean study, Life

My language study is an ever-evolving beast. For the last year I took 3 terms of Korean study at SOAS university, with a class and a teacher. It was definitely good, but after 3 terms I was starting to feel a little left behind. I needed some time to absorb everything I’d learned, and to see it in context multiple times.

How to achieve that?

Su’s sister brought me a lot of baby study books when they came over to visit. That was very generous and I thought an awesome chance – but actually each one is not so grammatical, uses weird baby Korean that is not the in dictionary, and wasnt really helping.

So I turned to my old standby. Back in my first year of Japan I took this same approach – I bought a copy of Harry Potter in Japanese. I thought Id be reading it in no time, but Japanese characters (like Chinese ideograms) are far too opaque. Even looking them up in the dictionary is basically impossible unless you already kind of know what they mean.

So, I never got beyond page 1.

Now I am trying that with Korean. It is a much easier to read language – as in, you can read it even if you dont know what it means. And boy, am I reading! Who knew the opening pages of Harry Potter spent so much time with Mr. and Mrs. Dursley? It is agonizing with difficult, convoluted grammar and vocab.

However, now McGonaggle and Dumbledore have arrived. They are discussing leaving Harry with the Dursleys. To be precise, I am up to:

– page 27

I have memorised:

– 3 A4 pages of new vocab

And it is fun. It’s getting more fun, now I’m not just following Mr. Dursley for days on end, going to Grunnings (his drill company) and watching people in capes wander round the streets, with lots of owls swooping.

Pretty soon we may even meet Harry!

I had to get this book shipped from America! It cost $40. When I move up to book 2, I’ll have to get it sent direct from Korean family, as it seems no one has that in stock in the Western world.

This a typical page spread. I normally do this study on the train. Most vocabulary is new to me. But, it’s getting better.

Doctor Who series 11 episode 3 – Rosa Parks review

Mike GristDoctor Who, Life, Reviews, TV

Last night’s episode of Dr. Who, in which the Dr. and her merry band went back in time to meet and protect Rosa Parks from a time-traveling rogue white supremacist from the future, absolutely shattered TV boundaries and thoroughly nailed its unabashed, bold, and beautiful progressive colors to the mast.

Image: BBC

It blew my head off completely. I feel like I’ve never seen anything like this on TV before, and certainly not within the world of Dr.Who. Where before it was always frivolous, empty, frothy escapades with a pointlessly manic Doctor, whizz-popping like LSD balls in a tombola through time saving the world and/or universe from epochal threats, this thing was REAL.

In history class as a student I used to often think – ‘Why can’t they make this into a movie? At least a TV show? Engage us with emotion, people, characters, a compelling story arc – rather than dry recitations of dates.’ Well, mostly I just said – ‘Why can’t they make it a movie?’ but the rest of it was inferred.

History should be exciting. It should feel visceral and real, like it matters, because it does. The past made the present. But when you’re hip-deep in a debate about the Corn Laws or the Bodyline Controversy, you’re not feeling how it matters. It doesn’t seem to. It’s deadly dull. History class teaches us, or at least it taught me and my pals, that history is outdated. Past its sell by date. A waste of time.

Dr. Who just flipped that on its head. I’ve never felt a connection to Rosa Parks as deeply as I felt while watching that episode. And not only to the past, but to a better future also. They tied her struggle to our struggle today in ways everyone can understand, whether its to young kids hearing the P-word in the playground, to young black guys getting pulled over by the police more often than their white mates, or to me, an adult white guy thirsty in the febrile Brexit atmosphere for some shot of optimism – some hint that the multicultural, diverse world I dream of is really coming.

Dr. Who is bringing it.

From the off they were hitting on all cylinders. Within minutes of the episode starting, a real racist white Southerner screamed at a frail-looking older black lady, and another punched our young black hero Ryan in the face. There was real pain there for both of them, real humiliation, real anger, and real restraint.

That’s not typical Dr. Who territory. Normally it’s weeping angels, end of the world scribbly things, aliens with ridiculous faces but normal human bodies, mannequins, and other things that may give you a jump scare, but won’t really dig in and make an impact. There are no punches in the face, no immediate violence. It’s all grand gestures and massive stakes, but you don’t ever look straight into the unyielding face of hate.

Now we have. And that’s good. More than anything else right now, with Trump spewing incitements to violence and the press under assault and non-whites seeing massive spikes in race-hatred against them, we need the Dr. and her gang to face down such evils with tolerance, reason and measured, civilized resistance.

I loved the chat Yaz and Ryan had. I couldn’t believe how up-to-date and real their concerns were, transposed into this usually ‘safe’ sci-fi space. Their talk felt like a beautiful, earnest lesson being handed down by the Dr. Who team. Like a mom or dad talking to their kid, explaining a horrible reality while hoping it would keep changing. The show is explaining us to ourselves, and we all need to hear this.

I admire enormously the way the plot played out. I was concerned, briefly, that they would go the ‘fun’ time travel route of having our heroes somehow be responsible for Rosa Parks sitting on that bus. Something they did inspired her, perhaps. That would have been a horrible mistake. What Rosa Parks did came from her, and her world, and the people around her. So I absolutely loved it when the Dr. clearly stated her thesis for the future, and for the show – ‘Protect the timeline’.

Yes! Warts and all. Because the timeline is in evolution. The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice. Protect it, conserve it, and watch it progress.

I’m keen to see this Dr.’s view of the future. I want to see the dystopias that could happen if we take certain paths. I want to see the beauty of her values played out.

As for the plot, I loved the push toward non-violence. I loved that all the characters were given something meaningul to do. I love the Dr.’s sense of humor, and how she isn’t pointlessly frantic, flapping around like a headless chicken – just at times urgent. I loved the Banksy jokes, and the way the Dr. shut down Graham’s criticisms, and the clever series of problem solving, and boy, just everything,

Sets. Acting. Plot. Story. The scene on the bus at the end, when we feel Graham’s agony that he has to be part of the problem for Rosa to get her chance, was just beautiful. His pain matters also. It’s not the main pain – that belongs to Rosa of course. It’s her life that will suffer the most. It’s her getting frog-marched to jail. Yaz and Ryan are impacted more directly. But everyone is hurt by this cruelty – Graham’s pain is different because he feels complicit. He is white. He is male. And he hates the cruelty of those like him.

Again – it is Rosa’s story. The show ended with me inspired. As the Dr. projected to the future, with the asteroid named after Rosa, and Clinton giving her the medal, I welled up.

This is what I always loved so much about Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yes of course, I loved the stories, and the settings and characters, but most of all the world. This future where every alien race works and lives together equally, where there are still issues to address – such as the sentience of Data – but so many issues are settled. Men walk around in mini skirts. People of different races are partners. A United Federation of Planets!!

And here we are, arguing about leaving the EU. It’s pathetic. We’re all in, and we should all be in it together. Come on. Now Doctor Who has picked up the flag and is charging across no mans land. I am champing at the bit to run at her back and make this world real. Let’s do it together!

New blurb for my book The Last

Mike GristLife, Writing

Today I got in my head that my zombie series starter The Last could do with a refreshed blurb. Where did this idea come from? I really don’t know. The book’s been out for over 3 years now, and sales are slow but steady.

What if it has still never really hit its stride? Well, that is an easy thing to think, and also an ‘easy’ thing to experiment with. I’m not going to alter the book itself, or the title, or the cover – all of which would require pretty major work. The blurb is its own thing – and while never easy, it is easy enough.

So what’s the idea?

Thank you for asking.

The idea is to refocus the blurb on character drive and emotion. I could write a book probably about the difference between engaging a reader’s interest and their emotions. I think my natural strength (not a great strength) is harnessing a reader’s interest. Intellectually, I can hook them. I can come up with puzzly plots that intrigue, bizarre worlds that require exploration, but what good is that?

People enjoy browsing Wikipedia. It’s intellectually interesting and can suck you in to some degree. But it rarely moves you to spend money. It’s not an experience, not really a story, not really anything but idly killing time really.

What I’ve always needed to work on is emotion. High stakes for a character that arrive front and center. Now here is the current blurb in whole, after which I’ll analyze it bit by bit:

If the dead don’t kill you, the living will.

One year ago talented artist Amo fell into a mysterious coma, dying and reviving multiple times. The experience left him mentally crippled, assaulted by devastating migraines that shut him down for days at a time, until one morning the migraines are simply gone – along with every living soul in New York.

The streets outside are filled with an ocean of the raging dead. A plane tumbles from the sky to crash into Manhattan. Amo is alone, maybe the last man alive in a horrifying, violent world. All he wants is to find other people and discover what the hell happened, but first he’ll have to survive the dead, the despair, and the psychopathic survivors.

It’s time to get creative. He is an artist after all…

Now look at it bit by bit, starting with the 1st paragraph:

One year ago talented artist Amo fell into a mysterious coma, dying and reviving multiple times. The experience left him mentally crippled, assaulted by devastating migraines that shut him down for days at a time, until one morning the migraines are simply gone – along with every living soul in New York.

Is there anything here about who Amo really is – ie – what he desperately wants? It hooks with interest. Line by line analysis:

1st sentence – What crazy thing happened to him (intriguing).

2nd – Just quite how crazy it was, leading (somehow, mysteriously) into the end of the world.

When I wrote this blurb I figured all this ‘interest’ strongly implied Amo was a fighter. He’s been through really hard stuff. But it doesn’t directly say that anywhere!! Implied is no good in a blurb. Also the question of how his illness connects to the end of the world is ‘interesting’, but not more than that.

It’s not slightly emotional. There’s no promise of agony, thrills, romance – any of the major emotions people look for from their fiction. It only harnesses the top-brain intrigue centers. It is weak, let’s say.

I want to hook by the gut.

2nd paragraph:

The streets outside are filled with an ocean of the raging dead. A plane tumbles from the sky to crash into Manhattan. Amo is alone, maybe the last man alive in a horrifying, violent world. All he wants is to find other people and discover what the hell happened, but first he’ll have to survive the dead, the despair, and the psychopathic survivors.

Looking back on this, I see it’s pretty bland. This is every and any zombie book out there, really. What’s unique – that he’s really alone? But that’s how many zombie books start. After coma, the hero wakes to an empty world.

At least here I’ve got something about what Amo wants. But these are pretty distant hopes. It’s not even like ‘find and rescue his family’ or ‘find others before despair drives him to suicide’. Both of these are in the book. They’re not here. It’s like this whole apocalypse is a dry chance for some good clinical anthropology.

Another problem – I’m kind of giving away the game by saying ‘psychopathic other survivors’. So the question of whether he’s really the last man alive is answered pretty much in the blurb?

On balance, I think there’s two drives for Amo, intertwined. One is to find Lara, and by extension other people. The other is to do that before despair drives him to suicide. Can that work in a blurb? I’ll try.

Here’s the final line:

It’s time to get creative. He is an artist after all…

I like this still. It implies a lot – that Amo is going to problem solve in original ways. He’s not beaten, not down and out yet. There’s hope, and it comes through his art. But maybe it’s too breezy. If the conflict here is about despair, this is too upbeat. It needs to feel fraught with despair. Any minute he could fall through the cracks…

Then the tagline:

If the dead don’t kill you, the living will.

This tagline is not grabbing me now. I copied Hugh Howey’s blurb from Wool – ‘If the lies don’t kill you the truth will’, but it’s not really a copiable sentence. His is better. Mine is generic to any zombie series. And again, it gives up the whole story – is Amo really alone? Well, no, not according to this.

Probably that question should be at the core of the blurb. It IS at the core of the actual story, and a large part of what is UNIQUE about this book. Finding reasons to stay alive when everyone else is dead. This book is an existential battle for survival against despair. The real enemy is within. How to express that in a blurb?

The emotion that best describes it would be despair/hope. I want to promise that journey to readers. You’ll feel despair and you’ll feel some glorious hope and redemption. It is not a book short on emotion. There are thrills, and intrigue, but despair/hope is the core. At a minimum, I need those words prominently in the blurb.

I will take a crack at it today and over the next few days. I’ll blog when I have something. In the meantime, all ideas/suggestions/questions welcome!

UPDATE – just an hour later and I have something. Here it is:

Hope. Despair. The last man alive.

A year after surviving a terrifying brain disorder, comic book artist Amo risks his life just to date a girl. Lara. She’s beautiful, smart, and broken in her own ways. Then abruptly she is gone, and along with her, the world.

Amo wakes to an ocean of zombies rolling through the streets of New York. The dead pack into the corridor outside his garret apartment, but he doesn’t care. He has to find Lara. He has to save her. But who’s going to save him?

America is empty, and Amo is alone. When he’s not fighting the dead, he’s fighting despair. His only ray of hope is a slow trek to the West, leaving a trail of grand American artworks behind, pointing the way. Maybe Lara will see them. Maybe she’ll be waiting when he hits LA. And if she’s not. . .

If she’s not, the dead will be, and Amo won’t need to be alone any more.

What do you think?

The new tagline is pretty basic, but it hits the new essential notes economically. Hope/Despair. I’ll keep thinking for something better. An alternate, also basic tagline would be:

Hope. Despair. The real enemy is within.

In this blurb the zombies become the background to a love story / road trip out of despair. This is more genuine to the book, and also more unique, and also more what interested me about the idea at the beginning. What is the point of surviving if you’re alone?

It’s also the key note the whole series turns upon. Hope vs. despair. Looking at the blurb for book 9 showed me that. It’s throughout all the books. At what cost to his soul is Amo willing to survive?

Comments welcome!